Posts Tagged ‘matrix’

This story isn’t new, as it’s a discussion that’s been going on for decades and was recently made into an extremely popular movie trilogy that spurred lots more conversations on metaphysics than most of us were accustomed to in 1999. And Nick Bostrom’s article, the subject of this post, was published in 2003. But if you haven’t read his simple, logical approach to presenting the case that there’s a measurable chance we’re actually living in a computer simulation, you should take a minute to check it out. That is, if you’re in a metaphysical mood.

Here’s the 2-pager that brings the point home. Here’s the Nick’s home page for the argument, with links to the full article and other perspectives and thoughts on the question, for the more curious.

Here’s the spoiler, if you’d rather have the 10-second version.

Let me state what the conclusion of the argument is. The conclusion is that at least one of the following three propositions must be true:

Almost all civilisations at our level of development become extinct before becoming technologically mature.

The fraction of technologically mature civilisations that are interested in creating ancestor simulations is almost zero.

You are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

The big reason, in my opinion, why this idea isn’t more prominent in discussions today, which Nick also points out, is that whether or not our world is real or a simulation doesn’t really affect how we should lead our lives. I’m sure there’s a philosophical term for that kind of question, as there seem to be a lot of questions like that scattered throughout philosophy. If you know it and have some more examples, kindly let us know in the comments.